A House Divided: Part 2

Mathew 12:25 "But Jesus knew their thoughts, and said to them: “Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, and every city or house divided against itself will not stand.""

Jesus is pointing to the importance of unity for everyone in this verse. Unfortunately, our divisions today are beginning to make us crumble A house divided will fall, the only way we can hope to stand is through unity. Realizing the importance of this, I resolved to do a series of posts on unity in different groups that exist in our society, a series of posts focusing on a house divided. My first post was on unity as a family. This is the second post in the series, and it will focus unity as a nation.

Generally, when we hear this we think of Abraham Lincoln's speech. When Lincoln talked about a house divided, he spoke specifically about our nation. Amidst the tensions between the North and South during Lincoln's presidency, he feared that our nation would be brought to desolation. Today, we are also divided as a nation, specifically when looking at the role of our government in our lives.

The government is an institution that God wants us to follow, He outlines the importance of our obedience to authority (Romans 13:1-7). According to His word, we ought to be loyal to our government, but we also have a duty to God. When confronted with the conflict between government and religion, Jesus said, "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's; and to God the things that are God's." (Mathew 22:21) So while we are subject to the ruling authority, our first obligation is to our savior, our hearts, and our behavior should be governed by Christ. Our government doesn't demand our hearts, Christ does.(Proverbs 23:26, Luke 10:27) The president doesn't ask that we tell everyone about him, Christ does. (Acts 1:8, Mark 15:16) Our political party doesn't mandate that we prepare a response if someone challenges our belief in them, Christ does. (1st Peter 15-17) U.S. laws don't say anything about loving your neighbor, but Christ does. Because of these requirements God gives us, we should serve Him even while serving the government. This means that our beliefs in God matter more than our political beliefs, so we should be unified instead of quarreling over different parties.

Now obviously there will always be division between parties. I don't expect that Democrats and Republicans will ever completely be unified, but that's how government works, there has to be some division to reach good decisions. What would be nice, is if people could get along. Not only would it be nice, but Christ requires it. The nation isn't the government, the nation is made up of people, you and me. We the people are the body of this nation. And you and I may disagree on certain political issues, but we ought to not quarrel over them. Quarrels lead to fights, and ultimately the division of our nation. So it is up to us to keep our nation Unified. And this is what Christ would want. We are supposed to follow God's commands and love one another regardless of our political beliefs. Max Lucado says, "God is not troubled by one who is conservative or liberal, and He certainly never inclines His ear toward a donkey or an elephant." We have to make sure we are acting like a Christian before we start thinking about acting like a Republican or Democrat. Today it's like the Christian party and the Republican religion are getting confused. We need to separate these issues. Each year we lift up our government higher and higher, but it's time to remember that it was the Roman government who crucified Jesus. Our faith should not rest in our political party, but rather in our savior who died for us. When our faith is in the right place, our actions will be unified even if our opinions aren't. But this is a struggle, we like to be right and we dislike the people who disagree with us. In general, I avoid getting into political debates as much as possible, and yet, it still affects my judgment of people in a negative way.


Not too long ago, I had a friend who I really enjoyed being around. For a few weeks, we hung out when we could and talked frequently. But then I figured out that this person, who had been my friend for a few weeks, had drastically different opinions than me. I was shocked. How could such a nice person hold these opinions that I totally disagreed with? So I began to separate myself from this person. Slowly, I allowed the political differences to divide us. I will still hang out with this person, but we are certainly not as close as we were. Thinking back on that, I realize how wrong that is. If we hold on to our opinions so tightly that we won't be friends with someone who disagrees, there is a problem. So often, we separate our selves from people simply based on politics. Looking back on it, what shocks me the most about this circumstance is how surprised I was that this nice person didn't agree with me. And I think this is something we all do: we hold this idea that anyone with a different opinion is the bad guy, that they are evil and wrong and can't be nice. Because of that, we are often shocked when the "bad guy" turns out to be a normal and polite person. And those pre-conceived beliefs divide us. If someone doesn't hold the same opinion as me, that doesn't mean they are evil or a bad person just misguided. We need to change the way we view people who disagree with us. Just because they believe something different doesn't mean (necessarily) that they hate America, and they probably don't deserve to be punched if you ever see them. When we hold that view of others then we put politics over religion and we choose our party over God. Instead of engaging people in a debate about politics, we should discuss God's work in our lives. Before we begin complaining about the failures of government, we should thank God for the country He has given us.


The division in our nation is great, and America will crumble if it continues. We the people, need to remember that our God demands unity, He demands that we tell people about our belief in Him not our belief in politics. Our pride in our country is overshadowing our duty to Christ, we give more to our government these days then is required, do we also give to God what is His? He deserves our hearts and our minds. United in Christ we will stand, divided by politics we will fall.


Colossians 3:12-14 "Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect unity."

Psalm 133:1 "Behold, how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity"


These are just two of the many Bible verses explaining the need for unity. Today, I want to encourage you to seek that unity. We need to stop letting sin divide us, and stand together in Christ. As Benjamin Franklin puts it, "We must, indeed, all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately."